Pollini on music

"In a way art is a little like the dreams of a society. They seem to contribute little, but sleeping and dreaming are vitally important in that a human couldn't live without them, in the same way a society cannot live without art."

From his interview with the Guardian, "Maurizio Pollini: a life in music"

A single moment in time that would never recur

"Both deeply loved their native land. Each had devoted decades to collecting and perpetuating its musical traditions and had become Hungary's greatest musicians. Although now physically safe in America, they were keenly aware that the world they had left behind was on the brink of extinction. It was with that crushing burden that they transplanted their culture to a new, hopefully temporary home, in the symbolic form of a recital at the Library of Congress, the shrine of intellectual freedom. (Although Szigeti lived until 1973, Bartok would die in exile in New York in 1945, never again seeing his country.) Both the style and the content of the recital seethed with emotional significance. This concert was nothing less than a deeply personal plea for an entire culture that was about to evaporate."

from a review of The concert given by Bartok and Szigeti on April 13, 1940 at the Library of Congress. They performed the following program:

Beethoven: Sonata # 9 in A Major, Op. 47 ("Kreutzer")
Bartok: Rhapsody # 1 for Violin and Piano
Debussy: Sonata for Violin and Piano in g minor
Bartok: Second Sonata for Violin and Piano

Béla Bartók (1881-1945) in 1909
Joseph Szigeti (1892-1973)

A divided nature

"Whatever the chaos in Brahms's mind, he negotiated his life with extraordinary discipline, common sense, integrity and honesty. The chaos of emotion shackled and subdued by a relentless sense of form and discipline: that is Brahms's art in a nutshell. Likewise, his life. And the most familiar and beloved note in his art is the note of yearning"

from Jan Swafford's article, "Bittersweet symphonies", on Brahms in The Guardian.

"By the end of 1854, their intimacy was so advanced that Brahms felt able to end one of his letters to [Clara] with a quote from the Arabian Nights: 'Would to God that I were allowed this day instead of writing this letter to you to repeat to you with my own lips that I am dying of love for you. Tears prevent me from saying more.'"

from Steven Isserlis' article, "Dying of love for you", on Robert and Clara Schumann and Brahms in The Guardian.

Pre-concert lecture

I just lost half my dignity by having to record a pre-concert lecture for my music history course. It's on Haydn's Symphony No. 4, Szymanowski's first Violin Concerto, and Mendelssohn's "Italian" symphony. Simply listening to my voice over and over when editing, saying horrible horrible things, squeezed what little happiness I had in me straight out into the open, where it was caught by huge invisible butterfly nets, jumbled up a bit and deposited some place where I won't be able to find it; somewhere in a tiny pocket of time.

Click here for the link.

Imagine if space/time had little pockets everywhere, that you could see and slip things into, like little cotton bulges in mid-air. or maybe little black holes sitting just over your head, sucking ideas out of you without you even noticing.

Ives and the Music of The Future

From an article by Charles Ives, Music and Its Future:

THe future of music may not lie entirely with music itself, but rather in the way it encourages and extends, rather than limits, the aspirations and ideals of the people, in the way it makes itself a part with the finer things that humanity does and dreams of. Or to put it the other way around, what music is and is to be may lie somewhere in the belief of an unknown philosopher of half a century ago who said: "How can there be any bad music? All music is from heaven. If there is anything bad in it, I put it there - by my implications and limitations. Nature builds the mountains and meadows and man puts in the fences and labels." He may have been nearer right than we think.

The Mikado

Some great Gilbert humor from The Mikado by G&S:

(of the Mikado's son and his fleeing from his unattractive wife-to-be, Katisha)

Pooh-Bah: I'm surprised that he should have fled from one so lovely.

Katisha: That is not true. You hold that I'm not beautiful because my face is plain. But you know nothing. You are still unenlightened. Learn, then, that it is not in the face alone that Beauty should be sought.
My face is unattractive.
But I have a left shoulder blade that is a miracle of loveliness. People come miles to see it.

My right elbow has a fascination that few can resist.

Pooh-Bah: Allow me.

Katisha: It is on view Tuesdays and Fridays on presentation of visiting card.

As for my circulation, it is the largest in the world.

Ko-Ko: And yet he fled.

The Mikado: And he is masquarading in this town disguised as a second trombone.

Debussy

I've found a new battle cry in an article by Debussy's imaginary critic, named Monsieur Croche (Mr. Eighth-note), who Debussy used as a mouthpiece in the Revue blanche:

"Remain unique!... unblemished! Being too influenced by one's milieu spoils an artist: in the end he becomes nothing but the expression of his milieu"

"Search for a discipline within freedom! Don't let yourself be governed by formulae drawn from decadent philosophies: they are for the feeble-minded. Listen to no one's advice except that of the wind in the trees. That can recount the whole history of mankind..."

Coffee Breath

I'm sitting in Unicorn reading the newspaper, listening to Shosta 4, and suddenly the humor slaps me with gusto. A large man wearing a thin mustache and holding his belly laughing with deliberate power. In a sinister way I think. That's what's coming through my headphones, molded from earwax; if that doesn't steel your breath to a deep metal-hue then I'm not sure what will. But then again who am I to pass judgement.

Tchaik 4

I. Andante sostenuto - Moderato con anima. The introduction is the kernel, the quintessence, the chief thought of the whole work. The main idea, first in the trumpets and then in the horns, is Fate, the inexorable power that hampers over the search for happiness... The main theme of the Allegro describes feelings of depression and hopelessness. Would it not be better to forsake reality and lose oneself in dreams?... A sweet and tender dream enfolds me, a serene and radiant presence leads me on, until all that was dark and joyless is forgotten... But no, these are but dreams. Fate returns to waken us, and we see that life is an alternation of grim reality and fugitive dreams of happiness.

From Tchaikovsky's letter to his wealthy benefactor, Nadezhda von Meck, attempting to explain the meaning of the symphony.

Excerpt from Scenes de la vie de boheme

Taken from the Lyric's Opera Notes of this season's performance of Boheme

At the Cafe Momus
"Gustave Colline the great philosopher, Marcel the great painter, Schaunard the great musician, and Rodolphe the great poet, so they regularly addressed each other, patronized the Cafe Momus, where they were spoken of as the four musketeers, as they were always seen together; indeed, they came and went together, played together, and sometimes too did not pay their bill together, always with a harmony worthy of the conservatory orchestra.

They had elected to forgather in a room where forty persons had been comfortable, but they were always found alone, for they had succeeded in making the place insupportable to the habitual visitors.

The passing guest who ventured into this den from the moment of his entrance became the victim of this wild quartet, and most of the time fled before he got hold of a newspaper or of his after-dinner coffee, the cream of which was often turned by the strange epigrams on art, sentiment, and political economy. The conversations of the four friends were of such a character that the waiter who was in the habit of serving them had gone crazy in the flower of his youth."

(Translations by Elizabeth Ward Hugus, published by Peregrine Smith Books, 1988)